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Marcel Fassler and Andre Lotterer claimed the pole position on Friday for the WEC event at Spa. Photo by Frederic Le Floc'h/DPPI MEDIA

Audi qualifies 1-2 for World Endurance Championship event at Spa

May 2, 2013

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Audi drivers Marcel Fassler and Andre Lotterer claimed the pole position for the second round of the World Endurance Championship at Spa on Friday.

The duo emerged from the 30-minute qualifying session on Friday evening in France with the fastest four-lap average, which was three tenths of a second quicker than that of the sister Audi R18 e-tron quattro long-tail driven by Lucas di Grassi and Marc Gene.

The pole-winning car, one of two high-downforce specification R18s in the race, was initially second in qualifying after the first runs by Fassler and di Grassi, which were interrupted by a brief red-flag period. Lotterer then outpaced Gene, who was driving the solo long-tail Audi, on their first flying laps to move ahead on the averages, but both drivers were forced by traffic to back off on their second laps.

The German driver was quicker than Gene by a tenth of a second over their final laps to seal pole position with a 1 minutes, 59.961 secs., which was 0.275 sec. ahead of the sister car.

Lotterer, who is also joined in the pole-winning car by Benoit Treluyer, said,

"It was a case of traffic management. I knew there was time [to do another lap], so I cooled down on that lap and made sure I got another one," said Lotterer, who was joined in the pole-winning car by Beniot Treluyer. "It wasn't my best one, but it was good enough to get pole. Marcel did a fantastic job. When it matters, he is there and drives the hell out of the car. It was a good day for us."

Di Grassi, who set the fastest lap in qualifying and was the only driver to break the 1:59 barrier, and Gene ended up a further four tenths ahead of Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish in the second short-tail Audi.

The two Toyota TS030 Hybrids were fourth and fifth in the times, the 2013 Le Mans-spec car driven by Alex Wurz and Kazuki Nakajima ending up three tenths ahead of the 2012 high-downforce version shared by Anthony Davidson and Stephane Sarrazin.

The second Toyota was only three tenths ahead of the fastest LMP1 privateer, the best of the Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota B12/60s shared by Nick Heidfeld and Neel Jani.

The AF Corse-run Pecom Racing Oreca-Nissan 03 dominated LMP2 qualifying in the hands of Nicolas Minassian and Pierre Kaffer, ending up with a 2:08.640 average.

The car, which was ahead on the averages throughout the session, ended up two tenths clear of the Jota Sport Zytek-Nissan Z11SN shared by Oliver Turvey and Lucas Luhr.

Aston Martin Racing claimed its second GTE Pro class pole of the season courtesy of Bruno Senna and Frederic Makowiecki. All but one of their best four laps aboard the No. 98 Aston Martin Vantage GTE was under the 2:20 barrier, giving them an 2:19.811 average.

That was just a tenth ahead of the best of the AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italias driven by Giancarlo Fisicella and Gianmaria Bruni. Bruni set no fewer than four times laps to lower their average to to within four hundredths of the Aston.

GTE Am honors went to the Danish-crewed Aston shared by Christoffer Nygaard and Allan Simonsen. Two laps by Simonsen in the 2:20 bracket were just enough to get the car ahead of the AF-run 8Star Ferrari shared by Matteo Malucelli and Rui Aguas.

The aggregate qualifying system calls for two drivers in each car to set two time laps apiece, from which the average is calculated.